Succeeding in the MBA marketplace: Identifying the underlying factors

There has been enormous growth globally in the number of both MBA providers and students over the past few decades. While inclusion in national and international MBA league-tables is part of the marketing arsenal of every MBA supplier that appears in them, identifying the determinants of success in this ever more crowded marketplace is a far less well understood issue. On the one hand, recognition of the fact that the task is more complex than a simple application of the traditional 4Ps is obvious to all, but on the other hand, operationalisation of relationship marketing principles seems rather too complex in this market where repeat purchase is clearly not the norm. This paper seeks to shed some light on this important but little understood area. We first examine the task through the traditional services marketing mix; comprised of Product, Price, Place, Promotion and People. Then, based on a sample of 507 current MBA students spread across the twelve different state-subsidised universities in South Africa, determine whether this is indeed the appropriate model, deriving instead a new seven-element model of the underlying success factors for student recruitment in the MBA marketplace.